Anyway, this conference is suppose to be all about MS Online Services (Azure), BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard Suite–now that’s catchy!), Cloud Services, whatever they want to call it.  Come on Redmond.  Pick a name and stay with it.  All you do is confuse the market by calling the same thing by several different names.  Or, in other words, get your heads out of the clouds and listen to what’s happening on the ground.

Now, why is the version of SharePoint on our Microosoft Online Services platform still stuck at 2007?  SharePoint 2010 was released in May 2010 and it’s now July.  Aren’t automatic software updates benefits of operating in the Cloud?

According to Chris Capossela, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Information Worker Product Management Group, ”It just takes us some time to upgrade the data centers to the new versions of Exchange server and SharePoint server.  By the end of this year [2010] our largest online customers will have the updated versions, which are powered by the 2010 servers.”

Well, as a small BPOS user of only 40 seats, that makes me wonder why we paid a premium to Microsoft rather than a more reasonable fee to Google.  Of course, Microsoft has a solution for their small customers, “Customers who are desperate to run Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in the cloud can look to third-party vendors, such as Intermedia, which has already launched hosted versions of the latest Exchange and 2010 technologies.”

iPhone Cold Weather Gear

This is my first post from the new WordPress iPhone app. It was easy to download from the iTunes’ App Store, its free,  and its setup was straight forward. The UI fits the iPhone format and conforms to its layout and navigation guidelines.

The only feature I can’t find is the ability to load photos in a post. As I design principle for this blog, I always like to start the post with an illustrative photo or graphic.

PS.  I learned how to load a photo (obviously) through trial and error.  The sequence of when the photo is loaded, however, determines where it appears in the post.  In order for it to appear in the most upper-left position, it must be loaded before any text is added.  In order to position it where you see it now, I had to edit the post using WordPress’ Admin Dashboard.

Within days of setting-up this blog I started receiving 2 to 3 alerts a day saying that my latest post had comments or trackback requests awaiting my approval. If I accepted those comments and trackbacks, I could have opened a pharmacy. The spammers were pushing Ambien, Valtrex, Lavetra, Viagra, and more.

For many blogs, Akismet greatly reduces or even completely eliminates comment and trackback spam from a WordPress blog. If spam happens to sneak past Akismet, simply mark it as “spam” on the moderation screen and Akismet will learn from your report as well as thousands of others’ reports. Remember it’s a community effort.

Akismet is a WordPress plugin. It can be installed from the WordPress blog’s administrative dashboard. Simply click on the electric plug (plugin) icon on the left side, click on Add New, and then Activate the Akismet plugin. Before the plugin goes to work, you need to give it your WordPress API key code. This code is free for personal use and can be obtained from your profile page at WordPress’ Global Dashboard.

Once you find your API key in you WordPress’ Global Dashboard, highlight it, copy it, and return to your blog’s administration dashboard and paste the key code in the API key field in the Akismet plugin. If you don’t have aWordPress GlobalDashboard account, you’ll be prompted to complete a form. There’s not cost and you get access to good WordPress support and updates.

Granted, all that glitters is not gold, and I’ve traveled down some productivity dead-end paths, but I’m always ready to risk a small investment in money and time to save me a few minutes every day or to help me be more effectively manage my business and personal affairs.  Enter reQall.

For less than $25 per year this productivity service lets me use any phone to record things I want to buy (buy is one of the trigger words that reQall understands) on my next trip to the grocery store.  Then when the GPS on my iPhone senses that I’m near the latitude and longitude of the store, my phone alerts me and presents the shopping list that it has been accumulating from my calls.  reQall translates my voice messages to “buy cottage cheese” into a text displayed shopping list.

reQall works the way I work.  I think of things I want to do or buy in short bursts.  Day or night. At home, work, or while swirling or sniffing a great wine.  When the thought, idea, task, or item crosses my mind, I let reQall know what I’m thinking and it filters it and stores it with similar information into a list or calendar that is appropriate by time, task or location.

A desired outcome becomes part of our ecology where all parts of us and our outcomes agree with our desires, values, and needs.  Everything around us is aligned in one powerful direction.  It is easy to set goals and it is easier to attain them if their desired outcomes  inspire us.

NLP offers a pattern to create a well-defined desired outcome:

1. Create a positive and specific goal that is measurable
2. State s desired outcome for that goal in terms of your abilities.  Ask yourself, “What could I do on my own to make this happen?” and “What actions would I take to increase my chances this week?”
3. Context is where we describe our desired outcome in terms of our surroundings after you attain your goal.
4. Five Senses help us taste, touch, feel, see and hear the environment surrounding our desired outcome.
5. Objectives break down our goals into manageable pieces so we feel good and reward our subconscious with motivation after achieving small steps.  Sometimes we refer to this process as, “chunking.”
6. Support is always a part of goal attainment and living our desired outcomes.  We can seldom attain our goals alone, so this step helps us identify the resources that will help us.
7. Check the ecology to learn what might be keeping us from our goals and think of ways or ask others to help mitigate any obstacles.
8. Create milestones to track progress and direction
9. Write the goal, its objectives and milestones in a notebook that is dedicated to this desired outcome.  This notebook houses problem solving and innovation discussions as the goal is attained.
10. Test this pattern, monitor its effectiveness, and make small adjustments as it is applied to many goals.

Remember, focusing just on the attainment of goals is not as motivating as focusing on how the attainment of a goal will positively impact our entire life.  To get the most out of attaining our goals, we should view them as helping us fulfill a greater purpose.  Focusing on this greater purpose or desired outcome changes our perspective of a goal and provides rich motivation.

The Ojai Vineyard’s 2005 Pinot Noir should make Jim proud.  It is highly extracted and offers aromatic blast of musty red raspberries and cherries during the initial swirl-n-sniff.   It has a full and rich mouth and finishes with a pleasant bite of tannin and acid.  This is a great Pinot Noir and ranks up there with Sanford’s Barrel Select and Lane Tanner’s Bien Nacido creations.

It paired perfectly with my German Sauerbraten and cheese course.  It cost $47.99USD when it was released.

This wine was the second vintage harvested after Chris Hammell took over the vineyard management duties in 2001.  It shows.

This Syrah required time to come into its own. Tasting notes from 2004 indicate this wine was tight, spicy and exotic with no forward fruit when it was released.

Fast forward seven years and this wine proves my point about Bien Nacido syrah grapes.  This  is a big chewy wine with balanced black fruit flavors and round soft tannins.  It paired nicely with Wild Ginger’s Black Pepper Scallops, Lamb Satay, Fragrant Duck, Seven Flavor Beef, and Panang Beef Curry.  Wine list price: $112USD

Budgets are tight.  Passion and intuition run deep.  Strong opinions; strongly held.  Continued improvement and funding for email marketing requires more than delivery, open, click-through rates or astrology.

Email broadcasts and their aggregated campaigns need to be aligned and measured with business terms like unifying goals, meaningful objectives, strategic projects.  This requires a solid understanding of the company’s strategic plan and the role email marketing plays in accomplishing that plan’s goals and objectives.  Meaningful objectives, like driving more consumer prospects site traffic and creating more non-endemic partnerships drive company profits and should also drive email marketing’s ROI.

Two different classes of metrics should be applied to email markting:

• Systemic Metrics–Bounces, opt-outs, spam complaints, unsubscribes, forwards, click-throughs, design engagement, subject line effectiveness, and conversion rates
• Indirect Metrics–Incremental revenue, cost reductions, average conversion, lead generation, site traffic.

As you might imagine, these two sets of metrics require collaboration and coordination with other departments.  The email marketing team needs to venture outside their department and find ways of collecting data that demonstrates the effectiveness of their offers and campaigns.  They also need to design and execute side-by-side tests that generate results that can be used to make small and continuous incremental improvements that product results.